Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable is for when cancer sites will have recurrence data collection mandated to align with the collection of breast cancer recurrence data.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS), part of NHS England, collects patient data on cancer as well as congenital anomalies and rare diseases. The NDRS has been collecting recurrence data for non-primary cancers via data submissions as part of the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset since 2013. Recurrence data can also be obtained from the Cancer Waiting Times treatment dataset for diagnosed cancer patients.

The Diagnostic Imaging Data Set (DID) is a central collection of detailed information about diagnostic imaging tests carried out on National Health Service patients, published by NHS England. Development of DIDS version 2.0 has commenced with the gathering of requirements from various stakeholders including NHS England, NHS Data Model and Dictionary, providers, and system suppliers. One of the requirements under consideration is the addition of an alert to identify if the imaging showed a suspected or confirmed cancer, recurrence, or progression. Such an alert could improve recording of the progression to metastatic status or the recurrence of cancer. Development of DIDS version 2.0 provides a window of opportunity to both reduce the burden of data collection, while improving the value of the dataset in assessing clinical outcomes.